Fallout 3 DVD and Steam version. Including all 5 DLCs or Game of the Year Edition.

When adding test results please specify video card and driver version you are using.

Follow the guide located below the bug list for installation instructions!

Selected Test Results (selected in 'Test Results' table below)

What works

At medium or lower graphics settings everything except music and radio works,

including VATS which Wine have had issues with in the past.

The following MODS have been tested and confirmed to work flawlessly:

Fallout Script Extender

Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch

Darnified UI

RH Ironsights

Sprint Mod

Weapon Mod Kits

Bullet time

CASM

GNR enhanced

NMCs texture pack (LARGE)

My own mod (Created using GECK in Wine)

merged patch (using FOedit)

What does not

At graphics settings higher than medium including anti-aliasing and anisotropic

filtering, there will be artifacts displayed on rare occasions. The interface

will also "disappear" out of picture in certain frames. VATS is unusable; bad

rendering and zero percent chance of hitting targets.

All of the above things, except for the rare artifacts, can be fixed and will

cause the game to work correctly. The problem is in principle not with Wine but

rather the game itself. Wine logs will tell you that it is running out of

memory, this is because of issues in the actual game; it is not capable of

addressing more than 2GB of memory. The solution is to enable large address

aware for Fallout3.exe and I will go into detail in the additional comments for

how to go about solving this problem.

On my system, and on many others as well, music and radio does not work out of

the box, but it can all be fixed by enabling quartz with Winetricks. I will go

into detail on how to accomplish this in the additional comments.

The game does not work properly on Intel graphics yet (the game hangs upon

starting), I have not tried to fix it but I suspect it requires you to tweak

regedit.

What was not tested

I have not yet done a complete playthrough (takes 50+ hours to do it properly),

but I see no reason why this will not work. I intend to continue testing so

if unforeseen issues arise I will make an update.

Additional Comments

System tested:
Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth Z87
CPU: Intel core I7 4770k @ 3.9 GHZ (Turbo multiplier set to 39x)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LP 4x4GB (CL 9-9-9-24) @ 1600 mhz
Graphics cards: EVGA Geforce GTX 760 2GB SC ACX & EVGA Geforce GTX 980 4GB SC ACX 2.0
Both graphics card handle the game well. I suppose people could be made to
believe I somehow claim to have run this with SLI, clearly that would be
ludicrous. To clarify; I used the 760 gtx for the first half of playing and then
switched it out for the 980 gtx. They were not used together in any way.
The rest of the system is not really important.
Installation guide:
To avoid issues with other applications I recommend that you create a new clean
wineprefix. Start by setting the wineprefix:
export WINEPREFIX=~/.wine-fallout3 (or to whatever else you prefer)
It is important in order to avoid issues with large address aware that the
wineprefix is x86_64. Now create the wineprefix with:
winecfg
Under applications set the mode to Windows XP (others probably work as well but
I have done extensive testing with XP). To get Steam to render properly, go to
the Libraries tab and enter "dwrite" into the field, click add and choose
disable. In order to get music and radio to work proberly, also type "quartz"
into the field, click enter and choose native.
Now download Steam and make sure the wineprefix is still set to
~/.wine-fallout3 (type "echo $WINEPREFIX" for an example in your terminal),
navigate to the folder you downloaded Steam to and run:
wine SteamSetup.exe
You can now install Fallout 3, start it up and play, but you may notice that the
radio is not playing music and playing on settings higher than medium might, and
probably will, cause issues. To solve the radio (if it persists) close down the
game and issue the following command:
winetricks l3codecx
This will install necessary audio codecs. This was actually an enormous issue at
release of the game, this problem is still not solved in windows natively, and
on many systems you need to install third party codecs in order to even get
proper radio sound.
Your radio should now work as intended. In order to apply large address
awareness to Fallout3.exe, download the following file:
http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/6510/tab=1&navtag=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nexusmods.com%2Ffallout3%2Fajax%2Fmoddescription%2F%3Fid%3D6510%26preview%3D&pUp=1
It requires registering an account. If you do not want to do this you might be
able to find the files elsewhere. Now simply follow the instructions in the
readme and apply large address aware to Fallout3.exe. Note that this fix is also
compatible with fallout script extender, which is recommended if you want to run
the game with mods.
That's everything you should have to do to get the game running good.
Further comments:
If you wish to use mods, then you will have issues with load orders. There isn't
really any good way of getting this to work properly since nexus mod manager is
not currently working as intended (I have not gotten it to work properly at
least). You can solve the issue by installing the fallout mod manager. You will
not be able to use it to install your mods, this still has to be done manually,
but you can use it to set your load order, start the game with fose_loader.exe
and also make changes to graphics settings.
Packages used:
Linux Kernel: 3.17.3-1
Pulseaudio
Nvidia driver 343.22
Various lib32 libraries from the [Multilib] repository
People seem to be giving this game Gold and Platinum ratings when it clearly
doesn't deserve it yet. The game does not work flawlessly even with DLL
overrides and therefore a Gold or higher rating does not conform with the rating
definitions.
Here is a video I made demonstrating how well the game works (with commentary):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9OhaGEhj5I&feature=youtu.be

That's it, you should be able to play Fallout 3 now. Report problems at the comment section below.

I'm happy about any feedback improving/correcting this guide, so please leave a comment down below :-)
You should also submit test results so the game's wine-compatibility-rating is up to date and known for most distributions. Thanks!

_

DEPRECATED Fallout 3 installation guide

How to get Fallout 3 working (DEPRECATED GUIDE)

This section is out of date. Try the steps from the Steam installation guide above first, but install from your DVD instead of Steam.

This guide was created for wine 1.2, the above guide is for newer versions!

Install Wine-1.1.33 or newer. It is strongly recommended that you install the latest version of wine (wine 1.2). The official information on Wine HQ will always be written for the latest version of wine.

Steps & Requirements:

Winetricks extras: d3dx9, cc580, Directx9, vcrun2005

Games for Windows Live client (Requires override of msasn1.dll)

Install Fallout 3

Modify Fallout.ini (Only if you have a dual or 2+ core processor)

Install patch (Not required, but it's to your benefit)

Troubleshooting/Fixes

Winetricks extras:

Open a Terminal

Download winetricks by typing :-

wget http://www.kegel.com/wine/winetricks

Install DirectX libraries and native comctl32.dll by typing :-

sh winetricks d3dx9 cc580

Install Directx9 and vcrun2005 winetricks packages by typing :-

sh winetricks directx9 vcrun2005

Game for Windows Live client:

Now we need to install the Games For Windows LIVE client, follow the steps below :-

If you downloaded the game from STEAM then it will already be the newest version and you will not need to patch or install the DLCs (if you own game of the year edition from STEAM). If you own a retail version then you will now need to patch the game. Follow the steps below :-

Make sure your Fallout 3 disk is in the tray (Disk 1 if you own Game Of The Year Edition)

Fallout 3 1.7 patch:

Download the latest patch from the links below depending on your location

IMPORTANT - To run the game, right click on the fallout3.exe in your C:/Program Files/Bestheda Softworks/Fallout 3 and select "Open with wine windows program loader". DO NOT run the game by using any desktop shortcut or wine menu entry or by the fallout launcher. Use the fallout launcher to set graphics and resolution etc. but don't use it to launch the game.

Install Fallout 3 DLCs

To install the DLCs, follow the steps below :-

If you have the Game Of The Year Edition from STEAM you will already have the DLCs and you are ready to go.

If you own a retail version insert your disk now (Disk 2 if you own the Game Of The Year Edition).

Run the disk's .exe with wine and the DLCs will install.

Note : Some people are finding that the DLCs don't activate when in game. This can be solved, see the DLC Fix section below.

This concludes the installation process for Fallout 3 with wine on Linux.

Troubleshooting/Fixes:

If you have any problems, see the FIX SECTION below for solutions to common issues or you can post a comment and we will get back to you.

FIX SECTION

DLC Fix

Note : This seems to be a problem with retail disks of the Game Of The Year Edition. The STEAM version should be fine.

Some people have difficulty in getting the DLCs to load. Normally
you should receive a message after you have exited Vault 101. However,
it seems that some people are not getting the message so the DLCs are
not activating. This can be fixed by following the steps below :-

First open~/My Documents/My Games/Fallout3/FALLOUT.INI

Find the line bInvalidateOlderFiles and set it to 1.

Then open the fallout launcher (the .exe is in the same folder as the fallout3.exe) and click on DATA FILES and make sure that they are all selected. Click OK and then launch the game. The DLCs should load in after playing for a few minutes (you will have to have exited Vault 101).

Resolution FIX

Some people have a problem when starting Fallout 3. The menu is
displayed but then crashes. This is because sometimes when the game
alters your resolution it can break.

Solution 0: You can activate the virtual wine desktopSolution 1: Set your
resolution in Linux to the game resolution manually before you launch
fallout3. Change it back to your normal Linux resolution when you
finish playing.

Radio / Music FIX

If VATS and Radio stations crash the game, and there is no ingame music, try this:install quartz.dll with winetricks

It may be possible that the game is unable to function with the steam ingame overlay activated. Disable it in the Game Library properties! (untick "Enable steam community in-game")

NOTE - Mouse Behaviour

Fallout’s mouse doesn’t seem to work correctly with either the mouse patch or these settings.

- The mouse patch: doesn’t work with Fallout’s 1.1.0.35 patch.
- bBackground Mouse -setting: setting it 1 DOES make menus
usable, but it’s quite a problem when you run this in windowed mode as
when you move enough the mouse, it goes outside the window... I have
dualhead so I need/want to run this windowed.
- MouseWarpOverride were thought to fix this problem with bBackground Mouse
-setting? Well, just gives problems here. Don’t set it. MIGHT be useful
if you have non-patched version. So you gan set to Direct3D registry
key MouseWarpOverride="enable" or MouseWarpOverride="force"

Games For Windows Live

­Updated (20th July 2010)

Note : If you experience issues during that
installation of Games For Windows LIVE try changing your windows version
to Windows 7 in your winecfg.

Patch 1.7 requires Games for Windows - Live 3.0 client. To install it follow these steps:

Note:Should you have any issues running Fallout 3 because of 'xlive unimplemented function' errors, see the fix section above.

NOTE - PlayOnLinux

Fallout 3 can be easily installed and patched by PlayOnLinux. You can download PlayOnLinux from here. There is an video made by DaweyYT on YouTube showing installation of Fallout 3 by using PlayOnLinux here.

Following steps:
-ensure the wineprefix is set correctly (echo $WINEPREFIX)
-execute the command 'regedit' from a terminal
-under CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Direct3D (create the Direct3D key if missing) make two keys (DWORD)
1.) VideoPciDeviceID = 0x00000402
2.) VideoPciVendorID = 0x000010de
"This makes any games think you have a GeForce 8800 GTS and makes them use their nVidia rendering path. This works well with the Intel HD's rendering system."

Read the linked thread for more information.

As of right now, I haven't really played the game, so I can't tell if it runs stable. I'm gonna update this comment if I run into more problems...

Hi, i'm new in Wine...i downloaded a PC version of Fallout 3 GOTY Edition and i create my wrapper and hit the setup, it works just fine. Everything is smooth until i hit New Game...A message pops up and says there's a deficiency with Wine. What can i do? Got an imac with

Some but not all of the issues that are being reported here are not due to running the game in wine. These issues occur for windows users as well. I just wanted to take some time to post some of these issues below.

1. For radio playback sound stutters and sometimes stops. (codec problem typically)
2. Textures stop rendering at certain times and areas turn black (not sure how to word this one).
3. Game crashes randomly.
4. Needing patched d3d9.dll for certain Intel graphics cards.
5. Game slows down significantly when using VATS.
6. Game crashes after pro-longed play time.
7. General issues with Games for windows live (only if you mod)
8. General misc npc, quest, texture, sound hi-cups (some things just never got patched in final game release)

Some of these can be fixed by installing some mods for the game or third party unofficial patches. (though, I have yet to try that in wine not sure how well that would work.)

Radio music not working
by Vladimir on Friday December 5th 2014, 16:29

Hello there guys,
I was wondering if anyone knows how to fix the radio music?
I have read and reread this whole thread several times and tried some suggested techniques but nothing seems to be fixing it. I personally thing that the Music is very important as it gives that special ambience to the game.
The radio is choppy when music is playing and barely audible but when Three Dog or the President talk its perfect. Also In game radios and Enclave Bots that fly play the radio music perfectly. ?

I am running Wine Wrapper 1.7.31 on Yosemite on the latest Macbook Pro with Windows XP environment set but have tried blank install in another wrapper with Windows 7 too.

I found that the game runs flawlessly on Ultra Graphics and crashes only occasionally which is not a big deal as I use F5 to auto save from time to time.

Regarding the Game, I own the Fallout DVD GOTY edition and made ISO image of it with PowerISO on my old Windows Laptop. DLC's work perfectly too, did not have to change anything in the INI file except the suggested:
bUseThreadedAI=1
iNumHWThreads=4

WoTo is needlessly overcomplicated
by Storm on Tuesday November 4th 2014, 8:40

The Howto is extremely, and needlessly overcomplicated.

I simply installed Steam under a new 32 bit prefix, and most of my games worked out of box.

For Fallout, You MUST let it "Games for Windows Live", it won't start without it (Screw you Microsoft!), then add these two lines to the end of fallout.ini INSIDE "My Games", not the ini inside, steamapps, the latter won't work. iNumHWThreads should be the number of cores obviously.

bUseThreadedAI=1
iNumHWThreads=4

Finally disabled Steam Overlay, and that's it. I really don't understand why the HowTo has all that voodoo in it.

Crashes on startup - us deprecated fix
by Zootal on Wednesday October 15th 2014, 22:34

Like many others, I found that Fallout 3 would crash on startup. I tried all of the "fixes" and nothing worked. I finally tried the section above titled "DEPRECATED Fallout 3 installation guide" and IT WORKS.

I don't know why it is deprecated, as the latest and greatest did not work for me.

You need to edit "My Documents/My Games/Fallout3/FALLOUT.INI" and change following:
- there is no need to disable water refractions or anything like that (even if installation instructions say/do so)

- add following right under bUseThreadedAI
iNumHWThreads=4

- If any of the following is set to 0, you'll get random crashes in game:
bUseThreadedBlood=1
bUseThreadedMorpher=1
bUseThreadedTempEffects=1
bUseThreadedParticleSystem=1
bUseThreadedAI=1
bUseMultiThreadedFaceGen=1
bUseMultiThreadedTrees=1

- setting bMultiThreadAudio to 1 will cause game to hang on exit and will make audio go out of sync in some outdoor locations, but you will have smooth controls/movement and no stutter
- setting bMultiThreadAudio to 0 - game wont hang on exit, but some outdoor locations (operation anchorage) will become unplayable because of stutter... really recommend setting it to 1
bMultiThreadAudio=1

If you have Intel video card game will crash, so you have to fool the game into thinking it's nvidia card, by running regedit and adding following to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Direct3D: (taken from bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=32973) "AlwaysOffscreen"="disabled"
"DirectDrawRenderer"="opengl"
"Multisampling"="disabled"
"OffscreenRenderingMode"="fbo"
"PixelShaderMode"="enabled"
"VertexShaders"="hardware"
"VideoMemorySize"="512"
"VideoPciDeviceID"=dword:00000402
"VideoPciVendorID"=dword:000010de

I'm using 1.7.24. Got quartz and l3codecx installed. The ambient audio plays fine (including other radios.) The Pip-Boy radio doesn't. I just get voices. Any ideas? (Yes, got overrides for "builtin, native" for quartz.)

I was helping someone on #winehq and it seems that the Steam version needs gameoverlayrenderer disabled for the game to work. It sounds like all Steam games need this at the moment, so that's probably "mostly" general knowledge - but it might be worth adding to the HOWTO.

Game fails to load via steam
by newbie101 on Tuesday July 1st 2014, 12:26

picked up fallout 3 GOTY on steam sale. read the how-to process for installing. Since I already had steam installed via Wine/POL I couldn't figure out if I should make a new prefix for fallout 3/steam. Instead I Installed the game though steam (also installed DX9 and the 3 other library values expressed in the how-to) Edited the .ini file for multi-core cpu support.
Sadly the game will not load. I get the launcher screen but after I hit play, the launcher screen disappear, no game window appears, and the games title in steam briefly flashes "synchronizing" as if the game had crashed/quit.Also will not run if I try running the program from fallout3.exe. Wondering if I missed some little tip or trick to use or if I have to go back to square 1 with a new prefix.

Runs smoothly and perfectly through PlayonLinux script, with Wine 1.3.26-xliveless2.
It runs smoothier than in Windows! With Windows8, infact, VAT sequences very quite slow, while with Gentoo there are really no problems, with identical graphic quality.

These are the tweaks I found in this page and on the web that proved to be essential for me:

1) bUseThreadedAI=1 and iNumHWThreads=2 in .ini files;
2) I couldn't get FalloutLauncher.exe to set antialiasing on; so I forced it through .ini files: iMultiSample=8
3) I had troubles with the background music - I could hear ambient sounds and radio speech, but not the wonderful music, so essential, imho, for Fallout3. I couldn't install quartz.dll via POL either, 'cos it gave me this error:

[Mac] Fallout 3 has encountered a serious problem...
by ivarin on Monday December 23rd 2013, 6:35

As I press New or Continue (with previously imporetd saves) it crashes this way (subj). On windows, running on VM, same installation works if to put d3d9.dll (intel hd bypass) to game folder. But same fix doesn't work on wineskin. Anything I've tried with this dll is unsuccessful. Also I've noticed that under Windows VM graphic card is detected as nVidia 7900 and this is the trick, I assume since I have intel hd 5000. is there any way to make Fallout think I have nvidia card through wineskin? (besides compiling it from source)

the right quartz.dll settings made my music work
by Claske on Sunday November 17th 2013, 4:12

On Ubuntu 12.04 with wine 1.4 I had the game almost perfect playing by following this guide. Only VATS and Radio made the game crash, and there was no music.
Then I found postings on quartz.dll and I installed it with winetricks.
But the recommended settings made the game not start at all.
Disabling quartz gave the game back to me.
But with the winecfg libraries setting:
quartz = builtin, then native
(which is the revers of the recommended settings) suddenly music also worked!
This may be valid for more recent versions of wine (and Ubuntu) as well?

I installed a retail version of the game, but when ever I try to start a game the game freezes, and this is what I get in the log:

err:winediag:SECUR32_initNTLMSP ntlm_auth was not found or is outdated. Make sure that ntlm_auth >= 3.0.25 is in your path. Usually, you can find it in the winbind package of your distribution.
fixme:d3d:init_driver_info Unable to find a driver/device info for vendor_id=0x10de device_id=0xfd5 for driver_model=2
fixme:win:EnumDisplayDevicesW ((null),0,0x32f53c,0x00000000), stub!
fixme:d3d:init_driver_info Unable to find a driver/device info for vendor_id=0x10de device_id=0xfd5 for driver_model=2
fixme:win:EnumDisplayDevicesW ((null),0,0x32ee0c,0x00000000), stub!
error: xp_attach_gl_context returned: 2
X Error of failed request: 0
Major opcode of failed request: 148 (GLX)
Minor opcode of failed request: 26 (X_GLXMakeContextCurrent)
Serial number of failed request: 392
Current serial number in output stream: 392

DLCs dont work
by Sebastiano Tibolla on Wednesday October 10th 2012, 16:37

I have the GOTY version of the game and I followed all the installation instructions above. The games and the DLCs has been installed without a problem, and when I run the luncher I can see them listed, but here cames the problem: I can check the DLCs, press OK, and if I open the DATA FILES menu again they are unchecked. Obviusly the DLCs are not loaded in the game, nor added in the FALLOUT.ini file.

I tested it with wine 1.4.1 and 1.5.14 with the same result. Also I can start the game only from the launcher, running wine Fallout3.exe doesn't work.

Crash on loading a saved game
by Simon Janich on Thursday April 26th 2012, 6:57

As mentioned in my test result (which I assume will turn up above shortly), I had the same crashes when trying to load a saved game as already reported by others here (e.g. Brett or YaYo).

I found that these crashes stop when I disable the sound in either the game settings (bEnableAudio in Fallout.ini set to "0") or winecfg. However, this is a somewhat unsatisfactory solution as I'd prefer to play the game with sound.

I have yet to try if it is possible to tinker with Wine's audio drivers.

Game freezes every five minutes
by Zootal on Thursday March 15th 2012, 13:07

I have Fallout 3 working, by following the above install instructions. However, it freezes every five minutes or so, and is almost unplayable because of this. Anyone else experience this, and have any suggestions as to what can be done?

Slackware 13.37 64 bit
Wine 1.4 (doesn't seem to matter what version of wine I use)
Steam version of Fallout 3

Hey everyone, I have searched everywhere for a resolution to the only issue I am experiencing without any luck. I'm using the newest version of Wine/Wineskin and created my own wrapper for Fallout 3. I followed the directions to a "T" and have no issues launching the game.

I can not for the life of me get the mouse cursor to respond accurately. It is all over the place and gets sucked to each side of the screen. I am on a late 2011 MBP. Is there a specific patch for this issue or specific settings I should be using to resolve this issue? I tried just about all resolutions including windowed and non as well as messing with v-sync just in case.

Game is unplayable for me and would like some guidance here as it's driving me crazy. Any help would be great!! Thanks in advance.

Game Restarts After I hit Play
by Joey Tanner on Sunday January 22nd 2012, 13:00

Im very new at all of this wine stuff but I tried everything to try and fix this, and I have absolutly no clue what is going on.

When I launch the game, it comes up, and it does its thing and "figures out what settings would be best for my computer" like any other game I have. but after its done, I change the settings to my preferences (sometimes keeping it how it put it), then press play. But as soon as I press play it dosn't load the game, it just restarts it all over again.

I have a mac and updated version of wine and i have done everything i can think of to fix it, even restarting the whole process of downloading, installing, and restarting. Im out of ideas.

Getting very very low fps on some locations
by Rémi on Monday December 12th 2011, 14:59

Hey there !

I'm having some troubles with a very fresh installation of Fallout 3 (1.7 with adds) under playonlinux using wine 1.3.26-xliveless2 version :

When I'm moving on specific locations (like riverboat landing) the game slowdowns dramatically, it lasts around 5-10 minutes then it runs normally (but only for 5 seconds before 'slowdowning' again... )
I tried to change wine version in play on linux but it did nothing.

I don't have sound too, but it worked one time for the first launching of the game after installation...

Except of that everything runs perfectly anyone has ever experience the same issue ?

Hi,
just for the record if you have the problem that your DLC isn't working and you try the fix mentioned above you may get the problem that your launcher crashes. If that is the case open winecfg and change the override of comctl32 to buildin. After following through with the DLC workaround you can change it back.

Game not really installed
by Silejonu on Thursday October 20th 2011, 13:26

Hello, I installed the retail version of the game via PlayOnLinux.
The installation went fine, except a message I didn't understand : "Games For Windows Live is not installed skipping uninstall routine"
Then, when I launch the game I have a "Install" button instead of "Play". If I click on it, I get : "Fallout 3 does not appear to be installed and the installer could not be found. Try exploring to your DVD-ROM drive and selecting setup.exe to install the game."
Trying reinstalling the game over and over didn't solve the problem.

Important tip how to prevent music glitches
by Rinaldus on Thursday October 20th 2011, 3:35

I installed Fallout 3, everything was good except sound. I heard only voices in radio but no music. But I found solution which never described here:
1. You don't have to install any d3dx9 from winetricks, only d3dx9_38.dll and set it to "native" on the Libraries tab.
2. Install msasn1.dll, xlive.dll, vcrun2005 as wrote in instruction above.
3. Install quartz from winetricks
4. INSTALL L3CODECX FROM WINETRICKS!!! I spent 2 days to understand that it's required codec, otherwise you won't hear any music on radio.

I have wine 1.3.26 and 270.41.06 nvidia driver. Graphic card is 9800GT and four core processor. I have performed all steps to run the game (Fallout 3 GOTY edition) and game runs without a problems. Problems occur when you play the game. I've played the game on windows and Ubuntu 11.04. There is a difference in graphics in the game on wine and on windows. You have to start the game directly from the game folder and using run with wine to open correctly and not using shortcuts. When you play the game game is slow. When you reach some areas (For example Oasis caves below a tree) it has really LOW FPS to unplayable level. Ive tried it with Windows 7 and Windows XP mode in Wine but it performs the same. I agree that this game shouldn't be marked gold (game must run flawlesly with special configuration to have this rating) but maybe bronze since even with all settings explained in the howto it runs slow and this affects gaming expirience.

FOSE Not working for me
by William Bowman on Monday August 1st 2011, 15:48

I've managed to get Fallout 3 working under 1.3.25, following these instructions, and Fallout Mod Manager (FOMM) working by installing Mono 2.8. However, Fallout Script Extender (FOSE) is giving me grief.

After launching fose_loader.exe, it looks like it's launching just as it does in windows, but then the whole screen freezes. I have to alt-tab and try to kill the Fallout 3 window a few times to regain control of my desktop.

Hi,
I just had to post this here because I was tearing my hair out. I have been running Fallout 3 in Wine for a few days, version 1.3.12. I played around with windowed mode and alt+tabbing back and forth between native applications (or else it was trying to run the same Fallout exe from a native Windows installation, can't quite remember when it happened), and Fallout lost all mouse visibility. At first when this happened, when I started the game up, it would scroll through the menu as though I was holding down the "down" key, and after I rebooted it stopped doing this.

I don't know if it just didn't display or if it didn't register the mouse at all, because I couldn't see to click on anything. I think it registered clicks because in the beginning you can click through some of the screens before the menu comes up and I *think* that did work.

After the mouse support disappeared, the keyboard still worked, but if I alt+tabbed out and back in, escape and enter didn't work anymore, as in I could scroll through the menu but couldn't exit or choose items anymore. One time I started playing with no mouse support, and the character was stuck continuously walking up and to the left.

I am describing this detail in case anyone else experiences these issues. What fixed it for me, just now, was I started up the game, and from the main menu used the keyboard to go to setting -> controls. The "invert y" option was changing back and forth from off to on like I was holding a button down, and I pushed up and down several times with the keyboard and moved the mouse around, and suddenly bingo the mouse appeared and the option stopped switching on its own, and I had mouse support back. I suspect I may have moved the invisible mouse somewhere that it triggered an event to do something in the application, like over the invert y option, or perhaps trying to change that option made it check for the mouse again. Anyway, even if it was a coincidence, that worked for me to get the mouse back. The Wine registry setting for MouseWarpOverride did nothing for this problem.

game worked like a charm untill recent wine update from 1.3.17 to 1.3.18 (ubuntu 10.10_64, i followed the instructions A-Z)
now, mouse is showing weird behavior, cannot move cursor too far from center of the screen, fullscreen/windowed, no difference. solutions provided under "NOTE - Mouse Behaviour" did not help.

Just a few thing I hope I can iron out before writing a test review. Fallout3.exe crashes with no obvious cause if you run it manually. This has been a problem for several versions of Ubuntu, has anyone figured it out? Also is there a good solution to make the background music and other secondary sounds work well with pulseaudio? Winepulse with full acceleration semi-works but it crashes sometimes, with a restart of Falout being the only way around (that I've found). Winepulse with emulation and ALSA with full acceleration both crash when the background music on the main menu turns on (the click and the music both going seem to crash them) ALSA with emulation just ignores the background sounds and OSS and Jackaudio do nothing for Ubuntu/Pulseaudio users. If anyone knows the solution to either of these problems it would be very helpful.

F3 GOTY will not install on gentoo x86_64
by Pantelis Evgenidis on Saturday March 19th 2011, 15:50

I'm using wine 1.3.15 built from sources on gentoo x86_64. The installer whould fail with an error on startup. At first I tried using playonlinux but it whouldn't install. Then I switched to manual and still didn't install.
Finally I managed to get it working by creating a 32bit wineprefix with:
WINEARCH=win32 WINEPREFIX=~/.wine32 wincfg.

Hello, I've tried to run Fallout 3 patched to 1.7, but I met some issues. I did change to xlive.dll, msvcp90.dll and msasn1.dll - set msvcp90.dll to native and msvcr90.dll to builtin ... so it should everything work, should... but it doesn't.

The problem seems to be in D3D, as just before page fault, I get this issue:
fixme:d3d:state_zfunc D3DCMP_NOTEQUAL and D3DCMP_EQUAL do not work correctly yet.
and right after this, I get:
wine: Unhandled page fault on read access to 0x00000014 at address 0x7a6a8a4e (thread 0029), starting debugger...

and this kills the application of course - for me the address 0x00000014 seems a bit low - so I'd say it is not issue in game or wine, but it should be issue in some library?

Ok so I used to run this game with a nvidia Geforce 8600GT 512MB
and I got playable FPS aroun 15-25 or so I would estimate.

Now I upgraded to a MSI Geforce 460 1GB HAWK Tallon Attack.
In other games, and native games specificly I got an insae preformance boost. In another Wine game (EQ2) I got less of a preformance boost but a preformance boost non the less.
But in Fallout 3 my FPS went down to an unplayable framerate (

Unable to get GFW Live Installed
by John Marszalek on Saturday December 25th 2010, 2:46

I've been following the instructions above to get games for windows live installed. I'm running OpenSUSE 11.2 with Wine 1.3.9. When I try to install it after I did the msasn1 override, I get the following error message:

F3 (Fr version) used to work perfectly. I switched to Maverick + Wine 1.3.5. Now F3 complains that it cannot find the DVD drive.

Actually, I figured out it would work when specifying in winecfg a drive with the DVD path. The problem is that the path is "/media/Fallout 3" and there is no generic "/media/dvdrom". Thus the fix only works with Fallout 3 : another game will need to have this D: path changed...

So I've got dotnet3 installed and the launcher works. But the game itself depends on xlive.dll, which I cannot install in anyway by some reason. Tried importing the DLL from the link into c:\windows\system32 - no luck: wine dosn't see imported DLLs. XP mode prevents the installing of gfw, ok, so I've changed to win7 mode, and that's what I've got : command 'wine /home/rgnr/.cache/winetricks/gfwlivesetupmin.exe /nodotnet' returned status 67. Aborting.
Help anyone?

I'm trying to install Fallout 3 but every time the installer is roughly 85% percent done, it asks me to insert the disc that contains data3.cab. I found on google that for other games this indicates some issue with securom thinking you have a copied disc, and then not allowing you access to all the disc's data. I can't seem to find any way to get around this though, any ideas?

I have been fiddling with this for some time now and I can NOT get the game to work. I tried installing in my normal .wine folder and all that the game would do is launch a black screen which required me to ctrl+alt+backspace out of X just to get back to a working system. I tried using a fresh .wine file and following the directions exactly and the game will not even start at all. Nor will the launcher. If I try runnin gin terminal I get this :

I have installed the GFWL and have set xlive to native in wine, I don't know what the other is and it is not mentioned in the instructions.

I would really like this game to work and I am REALLY questioning the gold rating as it seems there is a lot more to getting the game to work than "it works right out of the box". I run DDo and it was WAY WAY WAY easier to install.

I'm not sure what to do. I've tried everything. I've tried installing the patch with /nodotnet- and it still does not work. I uninstall Fallout 3, and re-install it so it is unpatched and it runs successfully. It is just after installing the 1.7 patch that all this happens. Has anyone else had this issue? Is there a possible fix?

I tried this with wine1.2-rc6 AND wine1.2-4.1 from the OpenSuSE repos (OSS + Wine CVS builds).

If having problems with GFWL make sure Wine is set to Win 7 mode
by Seth on Tuesday July 20th 2010, 1:21

I could not get Games for Windwos LIVE to install and I finally figured out it was because Wine was set to Windows XP mode. Setting it to Windows 7 fixed it. Though I do not know if it is an issue for anyone else, if you are having problems getting GFWL to install check to see what version of Windows Wine is set to.

I had installed FO3 (again), with 1.7 patch, in a clean prefix under 1.2-rc6, and sound didn't work in the childbirth scene, also the first dialog (choose your gender) did not appear. Soon after, rc7 appeared, so I ditched my previous install and attempted to reinstall under that, with no overrides except vcrun 2005, without which the Launcher will not run.

With vcrun 2005 installed, the Launcher would appear and allow me to run the installer, but the installer itself would not run:

motub /media/dvdrom0 $ wine H:\\setup.exe #The Launcher refuses to run the installer if you're not at the DVD;

err:ole:dispatch_rpc no apartment found for ipid {ffffffff-ffff-ffff-1e00-00001b000000}

err:rpc:I_RpcReceive we got fault packet with status 0x80010108

There was also a Windows error dialog saying something about an object or object class not being created, but I didn't write it down; I expect that this is the same error others are experiencing with the InstallShield installer, thus already documented. Nice clean crash, though.

Upon reading comments here, I reverted to rc6, where I knew the installer did run, and reinstalled under the same prefix with only vcrun 2005 installed and ALSA selected as sound (I'm using Linux Mint 9, which is based on Ubuntu 10.04, so I have PulseAudio, which I have not uninstalled as yet).

This time, I decided to let the installer run the game when it had completed (rather than saying no and installing the patch first).

To my surprise, I had sound in the main title (the clicks of the slide, not the music, but that's been gone so long that I don't even count it as a bug anymore), and the intro ran absolutely perfectly.

Then I got to the childbirth sequence, lost sound and again the first dialog did not appear (I have subtitles on, and so Dad's line did appear, but I got no 'choose your gender' dialog).

I hit ESC, thinking to quit, but then hit 'Continue' instead, and on a hunch from another comment, where the poster said they could only hit 'E' to cry, I hit 'E' to see what would happen.

The dialog appeared. I chose my sex, and the first line of Dad's dialog appeared, then the sequence "froze" again-- the lights continued to blink on the monitors in the background, but 'baby-head cam' stopped moving, and so did Dad and the lady doctor (avoiding spoilers).

I continued to step through the intro with the combination of ESC=>Continue=>E. This worked OK till Mom died, at which point I was pushed out into the hall (!!!)-- an area that I had never seen, because normally the whiteout occurs before my crib even reaches the door.

I hit the combo, twice I think, and the whiteout happened-- complete with the sound of my crying from either the beginning of the sequence, or from my last press of E, running over the whiteout dialog.

The whiteout faded, and my ears were blasted by Dad's voice, and the music from the baby music box (so sound seems to work once the actual game has started, but not in the childbirth sequence).

I am so weirded out that I wanted to write this down before 'upgrading' to RC7 and starting a new game via the same install (since I can't install under RC7) to see if the childbirth sequence is really fixed there as promised.

Because all this happened under RC6, which is technically behind the current RC, I don't feel like a bug report is appropriate, but this was all so strange and complicated that I did feel like it needed to be documented.

Audio still partial, otherwise perfect...
by No OnE on Sunday June 27th 2010, 21:42

Just a heads up, tested on wine 1.2-rc5, using the instructions provided here. All launcher, interface and environmental sounds are still missing. Haven't been able to test radio because of lack of interest to make the necessary progress caused by the incomplete experience. A regretful regression (from 1.1.38 and later, very much related to a similar problem with Oblivion IV).

Still beats Windows 7 though(, which doesn't run anything else than the launcher, says "Fallout has stopped working"). ;)

goty localized version crash on startup
by Indruck Balázs on Tuesday June 22nd 2010, 3:01

Hello!

I've managed to install the game, but it doesn't work sadly. I've installed al the necessary dlls, tried on different versions of wine (from 1.1.37 to 1.1.44), and I've tried all the ideas described here. Whenever I start the launcher or the fallout3.exe, I get the same fatal error messages:img254.imageshack.us/img254/906/fallout3polissue.jpg

I bought the game yesterday, and it's a localized version, I can't start it in English or whatever. Tried to change the language of Ubuntu but is doesn't work.

I use Ubuntu 10.04 LL, and I have ATI HD 3200 video card.

Oh, and whenever I start the game, it doesn't even starts to read from the dvd, and when I start the game from the dvd (launcher or fallout3.exe), i get the same fatal errors. I tried it with playonlinux but no solution.

open developer console for commands
by Henry on Saturday April 24th 2010, 0:13

The key Tilde (~) should open the console for fallout3 developer commands, but it dont works..

Is someone being able to open the console with wine?

I have tried changing the keyboard layout, tried remmaping a key to send the tilde to fallout directly with xmodmap, tried even the windows application AutoHotkey to remmap a key to send the tilde (it worked for linux applications also!), and nothing helped to open the Fallout3 console!!! :(

on windows, ppl say we must disable infra red device, but I cant find it on wine... :(

Slowdown after a while
by Joni Larsen-Haikarainen on Wednesday March 17th 2010, 2:48

I have not experienced the Slowdown in V.A.T.S that some seams to get.
But I do get a general slowdown (much less FPS) if I move to a new area or sometimes when I zone.
Only way to solv it temporarely Iv found is to hit esc, save the game and quit and restart the game at that spot. Then the FPS is fine agin.

If this was due to actualy loading new resources in the game I would expect it to go back to normal FPS agin, but it dosen't.
And if it where to the rather old graphics card i have I would expect sertan areas to allways be low FPS. But this is not the case ether as I get decent FPS agin after I restart the game.

Fallout 3 was installed and working when I installed it around Wine version 1.1.35. I'm using Linux Mint 8, which is analagous to Ubuntu 9.10. I've updated Wine regularly as updates became available, but hadn't played FO3 till yesterday, under 1.1.40.

All of a sudden, I can't run FalloutLauncher.exe, or Fallout3.exe, because I get a Visual C++ Runtime error telling me that "an application has made an attempt to load the C runtime libraries incorrectly" (!!!) and that I should "contact the application's support team" (yeah, right).

So I uninstalled and reinstalled in the same .wine configuration; imagine my surprise when I got the same error trying to run FalloutLauncher.exe from the DVD. Setup runs fine, though, but when the installer tries to launch the game.... you guessed it.

I uninstalled again and renamed my .wine folder to create a new one, then attempted reinstall. With a clean .wine folder, FalloutLauncher.exe does run correctly, but the game itself does not; I can get to the first or second slide ("Please stand by" and sometimes the second test screen, but never the Beth logo screen) before a Microsoft "this application has encountered a serious error and has to close" messagebox shows up.

So I went back to my 'dirty' install, since the game wasn't working either way. I've reinstalled all of the Visual C++ runtimes with winetricks, as well as Windows Scripting host and common controls as well as common controls.ocx, but no joy.

Does anybody know if there's an override that I should install with Winetricks that would resolve this, or should I be submitting a bug on Bugzilla?

Fallout 3 was installed and working when I installed it around Wine version 1.1.35. I'm using Linux Mint 8, which is analagous to Ubuntu 9.10. I've updated Wine regularly as updates became available, but hadn't played FO3 till yesterday, under 1.1.40.

All of a sudden, I can't run FalloutLauncher.exe, or Fallout3.exe, because I get a Visual C++ Runtime error telling me that "an application has made an attempt to load the C runtime libraries incorrectly" (!!!) and that I should "contact the application's support team" (yeah, right).

So I uninstalled and reinstalled in the same .wine configuration; imagine my surprise when I got the same error trying to run FalloutLauncher.exe from the DVD. Setup runs fine, though, but when the installer tries to launch the game.... you guessed it.

I uninstalled again and renamed my .wine folder to create a new one, then attempted reinstall. With a clean .wine folder, FalloutLauncher.exe does run correctly, but the game itself does not; I can get to the first or second slide ("Please stand by" and sometimes the second test screen, but never the Beth logo screen) before a Microsoft "this application has encountered a serious error and has to close" messagebox shows up.

So I went back to my 'dirty' install, since the game wasn't working either way. I've reinstalled all of the Visual C++ runtimes with winetricks, as well as Windows Scripting host and common controls as well as common controls.ocx, but no joy.

Does anybody know if there's an override that I should install with Winetricks that would resolve this, or should I be submitting a bug on Bugzilla?

Arefu people don't answer their door
by Robert Gregory on Monday March 8th 2010, 15:33

In the "Blood Ties" quest you are asked to knock on some doors in the town of Arefu. When you approach each door, you are given a choice beteen "knoock on the door" or "do nothing". A Youtube walkthrough of this quest shows the expected behaviour:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmFAyRwJ41gRelevant bits are at 4:30 and 5:47

Every time I choose to "knock on the door" then a dialog appears with an elipsis ("...") and nothing further happens. The only way I can continue playing is to press escape and go back to a previous save, but I cannot finish this quest.

I checked the wine output, dmesg, and Xorg.0.log before trying to open the door and after exiting the game and there is no new output between the two events. Fallout3 wine output here:
pastebin.com/qnBmL5Zj

I have googled my heart out looking for reports of any similar issue, but I can't find one. Has anyone here had a similar issue with this quest in Fallout 3? I don't want to log it as a wine bug if I am the only one.

When I try to leave Vault 101 it crashes. It hangs to a black screen when it finishes loading. After a while it makes a noise and crashes completely. If I try to load the autosave it made, it goes black, and occasionally goes to the pause menu, with a white background, I'll hit continue and it will go pure white, does this until it crashes or I end the process.

So I've had a misrible time attempting to set this game up, today I finally got it to work by updating the patch to 1.7 and then I used the Windows LIVE Disabler and it finally worked. The first problem after this was a glitchy video for people and the reported sound problem that occurs with the latest wine version. So I downgraded my wine version to 1.1.37 and I can't tell if the audio works or not I haven't tested it yet because now the people are nearly 100% transparent, I can see their eyes and their mouths and that is it. I have an amazing graphics card, ATI Radeon HD 4850 PCI Express 2.0 x16 (2gb on the card) and trust me I have other great hardware that is above the "recommended" required hardware for Fallout 3. Is there any way to fix these graphics issues? This game has given me so many problems on Linux I almost wish I had windows on my system (gag).

there's a sound regression within the newest wine, which prevents many sounds from playing within in fallout 3.
working sounds are restricted to voices (and background music with the appropriate patches).
you will not hear bullet, collisions, jumps, environmental, menu, and other scripted sounds - only speech

Wine-git Uberpatch for 64bit ubuntu with fallout, pulse and mp123 lib fixes.
by hortonwho on Saturday February 6th 2010, 16:50

I use the fallout.ini fixes delete the wav file and steam to play fallout3 in 64bit karmic. This patch below is for wine from git. It is for wine versions > 1.1.35. It adds pulseaudio fixes the mp123 library bug for 64 bit karmic and the alpha_gl fix.

Fallout 3 Game of the Year with DLC working
by Skyggen on Sunday January 24th 2010, 20:48

First install wine 1.1.37

Ubuntu wine has a ubuntu repo for karmic I used as Ubuntu Karmic is only 1.1.32 or something.

Then run winecfg just to generate files and default config. Make sure to navigate to the audio tab and select oss and the defaults should be fine.

Then follow the Games for Windows - Live Client as above making sure NOT to install .Net 3.5 because it breaks in wine as of yet.
A bit of clarity for the override.
winecfg -> libraries.
type msasn1 click add, then click edit set native only.
same for xlive.

Then get winetricks and run the sh winetricks d3dx9 cc580 command.

Install off the DVD. Fallout 3 has some sort of Securom BS which appears to break trying to copy it local and install.

It took a day our two to get it running, but now I'm outside Megaton :)

Ubuntu 9.10 Studio 32-bit w. 2.6.31-16-PAE-kernel
Nvidia 195.22, compiled on system
Wine 1.1.34, compiled on system, no patch but a lot of "winetricks" and GamesForWindowsLive3 + .net 3.5 SP1, using Windows 7 as alias, msasn1.dll added in system-folder
DX9 August 09 using the 3D3 registry-settings on this page
OSS 4.2, compiled on system

Fallout 3 installed through Steam(running on Wine), patched to 1.7.

The game runs fine and is very playable with good framerate and all menus are functional, and the graphics is great @ 1280x1024 @ highest settings, can't see any difference from Windows except a few flickering shadows sometimes.

Really a new bug needs to be created for this issue or exist bug found covering the issue. Applications seeing the wrong video card information.(Ok better name require) Message posted on to end of bug 15839 pointing to the new bug over this issue. Links to the attachments that works need to be in the bug truly targeting this issue.

At no time should any attachment in bugzilla be disconnected from its bug number it was created on. Makes finding it for updates hard. Or in cases that a bug was valid closed to get in there to find out about any other patches created related that did not relate to why the bug was opened in the first place.

Current patch being used need a code clean up. Without a open bug number this is kinda not going to happen. Without a open bug number patch is not on any path to get merged. Only open bug numbers can be attached to applications to get voted to show need as well. Its being lost to the void.

This has just been process breakdown. Lets see if we can get it back on track.

Cannot play after installing the GOTY Edition
by ehren on Tuesday November 3rd 2009, 20:03

I bought and installed the GOTY edition, but when I find the "Fallout3.exe", or the "FalloutLauncher.exe" it seems like it is starting in the bottom of the screen, but disappears. I have in the pact configured wine to run with Oblivion,and Fallout trilogy, except Fallout tactics won't work. I just tested them today they still work, I cannot figure out how to do the "patching" and all that in the "howto" section, if someone could explain it easier.
I have a Athlon x2 64 processor, a EVGA 9800GT video card.

The game runs fine with patched wine 1.1.32, although it is rather slow some times. My Linux distribution is Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex (64 bit). I installed (and patched ) Fallout 3 (1.7) using the playonlinux and wine which are in the ubuntu repositories. Then, I removed both playonlinux and wine, and did `sudo make install' in the patched wine source directory. For me, it was important to remove the stock wine, since the "dlls" seem to be in the same directory for both the ubuntu wine and the custom build. (Or I do not know how to prefix the whole wine compilation correctly) There are good instructions for how to build wine in the WineHQ Wiki.

I define the WINEPREFIX variable to the wine folder created with playonlinux, define WINEDEBUG=-all, and execute `wine Fallout3.exe' or `wine FalloutLauncher.exe' in the Fallout3 folder. The launcher seems to require the DVD.

Crashes on new/loading game
by cosmophobia on Saturday October 17th 2009, 12:37

Hello,

I tried installing Fallout 3 with PlayOnLinux (3.7/patched wine 1.1.31) and without (unpatched wine 1.1.31 without any tweaks). In both cases the game installs and starts fine.
When I try to start a new game (or load a downloaded one) the game crashes after loading a few secounds.

I tried a patched (1.7) and unpatched game. I tried using cracks. It's always the same.

Fallout3.exe quits at startup
by RC on Tuesday August 11th 2009, 23:07

I've successfully gotten the Fallout Launcher to load. However, when running Fallout3.exe, it quits at startup with the following messages:

With windowed mode on:

Failed to initialize renderer.
Windowed mode not supported on this Adapter.

With windowed mode off:

Failed to initialize renderer.
Your display doesn't support the selected resolution. Please set a
different resolution in Fallout 3's Launcher under 'Display Settings'.

(It shows this regardless of what resolution I set in FalloutPrefs.ini, including the Fallout defaults and my screen's native resolution.)

Versions: Fallout 1.7, wine 1.1.27 (built from source with the above patch applied), and with the following installed from winetricks: d3d9, vcrun2005, and vcrun2005sp1 (for a few required DLLs). Using XQuartz 2.3.3.2 on a Mac.

Just thought I'd let everyone know, that FOSE works, which is good news for mods in general.I tried the mod FO3Fps (shows frames per second in game) and it works perfectly.Too bad the oblivion counterpart OBSE, still doesn't work.

As the howto is not really detailed and i posted this as reply so some users dint see this so I'm gonna tell how i got this game work like Charm without heads tho.

Heres how:
1) I checked my shaderpack in renderinfo.txt file
2) Replaced it with Shaderpack019 (You may try others also if 019 wasn't good)
3) Searched fallout.ini and falloutprefs.ini for word decal
4) Every occuranse of the word Decal i setted to 0
5) If you have Quad Core or more than 2 cores:
5.2) Make bUseThreadedAI to 1 in Fallout.ini
5.3) Insert this after it then iNumHWThreads=2

If the game still crashes at startup you have to put useFaceGenHeads=0 in fallout.ini, this disables heads, but the game will work. This is because Fallout 3 has poor hardware compatibly and don't work well with all hardware. Now the game works just like under Windows with same proplems and bugs. You still may get flickering after playing some hours and slowdowns and rare crashes, but this happens also in Windows. I play with Very High settings btw =)

I have Q6600 and nVidia GForce 8600 GT. Hope this helps.
Btw, i really suggest installing latest version of PlayOnLinux and install Fallout 3 with the script that is already in the POL Repo. Because this game can easily break compatibly with your other Wine programs. And the POL Script just works after you've done the stuff above.

Game Locked at Birth Scene
by Shannon T on Monday March 30th 2009, 11:42

The first ever bug that totally ruin the game experience

"Right after the nurse leaves and the mother says "we did it" the game becomes idle, only the e button works making the baby cry, the dad says nothing, nor leaves and nothing happens. "

And reading from a post from other forum, one of the guys said something like "you can tell straight away whether an install went right or wrong, If it detects it as all high but no water and no certain things, then u know its a goner." which is exactly happening to me, but it's a complete different story when the game is installed into my friend's PC, he's playing it right now.

i'd being trying and reinstalling for the 6th time so i dont know what to do.

while I was trying to find a solution, i stumbled across Wine
so i was just wondering, should i do the "Wine" thing? with the reg and stuff which is shown above the first post?

Due to the fact that many WINDOWS PC's have problems with incorrect detection of virtual drives - which disables fallout 3 - A patch has been released to disable the check. If you have an issue with this (I did) try using the patch.

the end of the world as we know it
by shnull on Wednesday November 19th 2008, 1:48

I finished the game yesterday, totally, i cant say i did every single quest but i did a LOT. Used almost any weapons and definitely any skills. Compared to windows only differences are FAR better loading times on Linux, and slightly less fps in VATS on Linux.
If anyone's interested, i wrote this perl script that helps me hack the terminals in (mostly two but) three passes.

feel free to adapt, send me a msg if you do, if you know perl you can get the routine from it, if you don't, well, take some time, its a useful scripting lng when using linux, though not one of the youngest,

Crashes are related to SM 2.0B+
by Mikael Åkersund on Tuesday November 4th 2008, 8:13

The reason that Fallout3 crashes when starting a new game is that some of the shader effects added require SM 2.0 B or higher. Oblivion only required SM 2.0. Windows users with Radeon 9x00 cards or Intel 965

To get past the New Game crash edit Documents/My Games/FALLOUT.INI and set bUseFaceGenHeads=0

You'll be able to see the intro movie, your birth, customize your character and take your first steps. All characters won't have any heads and the game is going to crash soon after that.